After a 6 months pilot, Paystack officially opens its South African Office
Paystack, a leading African fintech company, powering businesses with its API has today announced its expansion to South Africa.
Paystack’s launch in South Africa is preceded by a 6months pilot that was announced by the company a month after its acquisition by Stripe.
In the course of this Pilot, the company worked with diverse businesses and grew a local team to handle their operations in South Africa.
With this launch, the company now has a presence in Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa.
The company which was founded in 2015 by Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi, helps businesses in Africa get paid by anyone, anywhere in the world.
In 2018, Paystack raised an $8million Series A round led by Stripe which was used to fund its Ghana expansion plans.
Currently, the company claims to power about 60% of all online payments in Nigeria with around 60,000 customers, including small businesses, larger corporates, fintech, educational institutions, and online betting companies. Some of its customers include MTN, SPAR, and UPS, and they use the company’s software to collect payments globally.
Commenting on the expansion, Khadijah Abu, the head of product expansion at Paystack said: “for many businesses in South Africa, we know that accepting payments online can be cumbersome. Our pilot in South Africa was hyper-focused on removing barriers to entry, eliminating tedious paperwork, providing world-class API documentation to developers, and making it a lot simpler for businesses to accept payments online.”
Shola Akinlade, Paystack CEO said, “South Africa is one of the continent’s most important markets, and our launch here is a significant milestone in our mission to accelerate commerce across Africa. We’re excited to continue building the financial infrastructure that empowers ambitious businesses in Africa, helps them scale, and connects them to global markets.”
Paystack was acquired by Stripe last October in what’s regarded as the biggest acquisition to come out of Nigeria. It is also the biggest acquisition by Stripe to date.